Bringing people together through the arts. A non-profit second-hand bookshop and arts venue in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. Patron: Warren Ellis (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Dirty Three)

Not such a good day today. Not usually here on a Sunday morning, but was looking for a quiet place to get some work done (I do some academic work alongside the bookshop), and discovered the till and laptop missing from the shop. £60 float in the till, which may not sound a lot but is a day’s takings, and the laptop was fairly new. The worst part is that the building now feels vulnerable – we think we know how they got in (we certainly know how they got out), so security can be tightened, but it’s not a great feeling. And the value of the stolen goods, in terms of us replacing them, is around £550, which we certainly don’t have.

So we will be working without a till for a bit, and I will be bringing my laptop from home. I should have been less complacent about the chances of someone breaking in! It could have been so much worse – no damage to the building, so no repairs, and nothing else of value for anyone to steal, and I don’t think there was anything precious on the laptop that isn’t backed up, so we’ll survive – just a bit of a blow after starting to feel so positive again!

Anyway, if you see signs of heightened security in the way we operate – including possibly being a bit less hospitable in terms of letting people come in to use the loo! – please bear with us.

There’s always something. Here’s some Nick Cave magic to cheer us all up. We No Who U R. He’s scary and he’s on our side, so if anyone out there feels like burgling us again, you’ll have him to answer to! And Warren Ellis. You’ve been warned.